


Hey Sugar, Are You Rationed?

by merisunshine36



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-01
Updated: 2010-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:45:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merisunshine36/pseuds/merisunshine36
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>World War 2 looms over the horizon as Uhura manages the daily trials of her Montmartre jazz cafe and the motley crew of entertainers and expats that hold it together. When a wounded young man shows up on her doorstep, things don't get any easier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey Sugar, Are You Rationed?

**Author's Note:**

> For the [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/het_idcrack/profile)[**het_idcrack**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/het_idcrack/)  prompt: "WW2 AU: Kirk gets shot down over Germany and Uhura saves him with extreme badassery". I had to tweak things for historical accuracy, but the spirit of the prompt is still there.  Betaed lighting-quick by the wonderful [](http://leftarrow.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**leftarrow**](http://leftarrow.dreamwidth.org/)  and [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/lindmere/profile)[**lindmere**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/lindmere/) , who also unintentionally gave me the title. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

_Paris, Summer 1940_

Living in Paris these days is like dropping a phonograph needle down at random and hoping you get something you like. Petain's surrender to Hitler had been a crushing blow to morale—now rumors of censorship, secret police, and internment camps for those deemed 'undesirable' are spreading like wildfire. But the average Parisian still loves a good night out and Chez Uhura, a little jazz café in Montmartre, is packed with people looking for an escape. They sit elbow to elbow at the little tables scattered across the floor--men in their finest suits with the cuffs carefully mended so that the wear doesn't show, and ladies wearing gloves made new again with a bit of rabbit fur added to the cuff.

"Hey Spock," Uhura calls from her throne at the front of the house. Her little barstool was specially crafted to sit a bit higher than all the others so she could watch her kingdom come alive at night. "Play '[Night and Day](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FL4i9cl640)' for me, would you? I'm feeling romantic."

People came from all around to hear Spock play. His deft fingers glide across the cool ivory of the piano keys with the same effortless grace that characterizes Fred and Ginger every time they set foot on the dance floor. He nods at Uhura and leans closer to the instrument, and everyone stops for a moment to watch before returning to their platefuls of piping hot collard greens and crackling cornbread, or the new round of drinks that the waiter just brought over. Like everyone else, Spock was a little bit taken with Uhura--but he was head over heels in love with her piano.

Everyone _also_ knows that he is off limits. Spock was promised to a nice Jewish girl named T'Pring who was the daughter of a rabbi and friend of his father Sarek's. Until he relocated his wife and son to Paris in order to expand the accounting firm he hoped Spock would one day inherit, the two families had lived in Nevers, a tiny town tucked right up against the river Loire. Sarek had been planning to get the two of them beneath a chuppah since Spock was seven. Uhura had met the girl once —she was beautiful, if a little cold.

Spock never talks about the fact that it has been nearly three months since they've received correspondence from T'Pring, or her father.

~

  
The final strains of the tune float out over the crowd and gradually fade into the tumble of voices in the room. The trumpet player Uhura hired for the night tries to sneak up onto the stage without her noticing, forty-five minutes late with his tie hanging crookedly to one side. He launches into a plaintive rendition of "[All of Me](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFzxo-XI8As)", wholly ignorant of the fact that his fly is open as well.

Spock disentangles his long legs from the piano stool and weaves his way through the seating area over to the bar, fingers still tapping against his thigh in silent rehearsal of whatever he'll play next.

"That was wonderful, Spock—you're really hittin' on all sixes tonight." Uhura blows the smoke from her Gauloises into the air. As a woman, she's not supposed to have cigarettes since tobacco rationing began, but she lets people trade them for drinks when they're low on cash. She frowns in the general direction of the stage. "I don't know what I pay that man for. Why don't people understand that this is a business, not a flop house?"

Spock rests an elbow on the bar, his eyes calmly scanning the house and analyzing who's there, what they like to hear, and whether or not playing it will keep them in their seat for another hour.

"Mademoiselle Uhura, you would do well to remember that M'Benga is the only trumpet player with that level of skill within a day's travel," he answers dryly, the suggestion of a smile hiding in the corner of his mouth.

"Ugh. I've seen him making eyes at Charlene—if he so much as lays a finger on her, I'll have his head on a pike." She waves over the new bartender, a skinny Russian kid named Chekov. He's new to Paris, having fled Russia with his parents as a white émigré and wandering through Europe for a while before settling down in France. "Get Spock a club soda, would you?"

Chekov nods—he knows little French beyond _oui_, _non_, and the names of various drinks, although he and Uhura trade language lessons on slow nights. Uhura likes having him around, since his baby-soft curls and wide, innocent eyes are nothing but good for business.

Spock reaches past Uhura for the glass being offered, and she gets an eyeful of the little yellow star of David sewn to the breast pocket of his suit, the word _Juif_ in bright green thread. Uhura runs her fingers over the raised embroidery while Spock watches her, curious.

"Spock, you don't have to wear that in here, you know that." Uhura finds that she's a little angry at the sense of quiet resignation she's getting from him. He seems to process everything—the sign declaring '_Les Juifs ne sont pas admis ici_' at one of his favorite restaurants, Sarek being forced to shut down his offices, the ban on Jews riding on all but the last carriage on the Métro—with unflappable calm.

The sound of a familiar southern drawl comes from over Uhura's shoulder. "You know Spock, since your people don't believe in Hell, you can drink all you want—no fear of additional repercussions." She sighs. Dr. Leonard McCoy, a surgeon over at the American Hospital in Paris, is a regular customer and an occasional pain in the ass.

Spock returns McCoy's challenging gaze with a cool look of his own, one dark eyebrow rising to meet his hairline. "Indeed. Unlike yourself, Dr. McCoy, I have no patients whose very lives depend on my having a steady hand."

Uhura tenses in the spot where she's sandwiched between the two of them. Spock usually doesn't let anyone get a rise out of him, but for some reason, he always seems willing to take the bait from McCoy. It doesn't help that the doctor is a Southern Baptist, born and bred and more than happy to tell you his opinion about it. But it's never come to blows thus far and as long as they keep it verbal, Uhura is happy. Spock keeps the joint full of people and McCoy patches them up when they get out of hand. It's a good system, and it's going to stay that way.

Before McCoy can get in a good comeback, Spock slips back into the crowd. McCoy scowls, then peers skeptically at the contents of his glass. "Uhura, I think that child you've got behind the bar is watering down the drinks again."

Uhura takes a moment to smooth the lines of the sweet little Vionnet number she's wearing before dropping delicately to the floor. She's lost the advantage of height now that she's standing, but it puts her mouth right at the level McCoy's ear. She can practically hear his heart climbing into this throat in a bid to escape the perfectly manicured fingernail she draws down his jacket lapel. "Everyone else, sure. But you, doctor? Never."

  


____spacer____

~

The stars are winking out one by one by the time things finally begin to wind down. There are only a few patrons clinging to the night, and they sit nursing their drinks and talking in hushed, intimate tones. Spock is huddled over the piano, his jacket tossed over the back of a chair and shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. There's a slight furrow between his brows as he picks over the keys, trying to perfect a new tune he and M'Benga have been working on together.

Uhura slips upstairs to the three-room flat she lives in for a moment of silence. She thinks of penning a letter to her mother but doesn't know what she'd say anymore. It's getting harder every day to think of good news to send—the store shelves are increasingly bare, and a heavy climate of fear has sprung up in response to the presence of stern-faced Gestapo officers in the streets. A number of her more wealthy patrons packed up and returned to the U.S. at the first sign of German aggression, but she'll be damned if she goes back to the life of cleaning houses and cooking dinners she led back in Georgia. Exhausted, Uhura collapses into the armchair next to the window with a lovely view of the Seine when a knock comes at the door.

It's Charlene, the young girl who currently boards with Uhura in the second room in exchange for keeping the place tidy and fussing at the stove whenever it decides to misbehave. Her eyes are wide with fear. The coat she's wearing drips steadily onto the rug, her wet pin curls plastered flat to the sides of her face.

Uhura narrows her eyes. "What are you doing out at this time of night instead of in the kitchen washing up like you're supposed to be? And if the answer begins with M and ends with Benga, I do not want to know."

"Please, Miss Uhura, don't be cross with me. I...," Charlene looks off down the hall as if she expects someone to step in and rescue her. "I went...for a walk. But Miss Uhura, what I came to tell you was--"

"I hope it will be the reason you are creating a lake in the middle of my hallway."

"It didn't think it was gonna rain again when I left," she offers lamely. "But Miss Uhura, there's a man in the alley."

"And why, exactly, does this concern me?"

"I think he's been shot."

Uhura inhales sharply through her nose. "He's not one of _them_, is he?" she asks. Charlene shakes her her head.

"He had an American Field Service uniform on." Charlene looks nervously at her feet. "I got his blood on my shoes. That's how I found him. I almost fell in it. These are the only pair I have left that fit."

Uhura pushes past her to the coat closet in the hall and pulls out a sweater at random. "Do you think I care about your shoes right now? We're gonna go find him, and you're coming with me."

"I am?" Charlene squeaks. "Shouldn't we ask someone else to help?"

Uhura is already at the foot of the back staircase that leads directly outside, and her expression is all business. "Charlene Masters, I do not pay you to stand there and look pretty, so you will come outside right now or so help me God I'll put you on the next plane back to Chicago."

The moment she cracks the door, the wind gets its fingers around the edges and pushes it wide open. The late summer rain that blew through the city earlier in the evening has tapered off, leaving only a lazy mist behind.

"Which way?" Uhura whispers. "Left or right?"

"Left," answers Charlene, and points down to a shadowy area behind a mound of rubbish.

The weak beam of light from the battery-powered torch she carries reveals a small river of blood running down between the cobblestones and into the wet earth beneath. Uhura quickens her pace and sure enough, there's a young man at the end of the trail wearing the khaki-colored AFS uniform and lying on the ground in the pile of wet garbage. The right leg of his trousers is stained dark with blood.

Uhura shoves the torch into her pocket. "Quick, you get his arms, I'll get his legs."

Charlene does as she's told, linking her hands together beneath his armpits and lifting with all her might when Uhura gives a count of three.

"Agh! For the love of God, slow down!" The young man's eyes are still squeezed shut in pain, his jaw clenched tight against the desire to cry out.

The shock is so bad that they nearly drop him. "Miss Uhura, he's alive!"

"Of course I'm alive, would I be talking to you if I was dead?" he rasps.

Uhura can feel her grip slipping, and her balance is precarious on the blood-wet ground. "Dead or alive, you need to be quiet and stay still so we can get you inside."

They are forced to pause every few moments while maneuvering him up the narrow staircase to Uhura's room. In the back of her mind, she wonders if maybe she shouldn't have let her ego get the better of her when she told Charlene they wouldn't need any help.

He passes out again soon after he's stretched out on her bed. Uhura orders Charlene to bring down some spare blankets and a basin of hot water. She has a new-found appreciation for McCoy's tendency to tell field surgery anecdotes when he's had a few too many. The rapid pulse and death white pallor of his skin tell her that he's going into shock from all the blood loss.

Just as she's about to yell for Charlene to hurry it up, the young girl reappears at Uhura's side. She drops a pair of sewing scissors into Uhura's right hand. They have got to get him out of these wet clothes.

She's got the right leg of his trousers torn clear up to the mess of blood and bruises that is his thigh when she notices the way Charlene's lower jaw is practically lying on the ground.

"Charlene," she begins calmly, "Go change out of those wet things you've got on. I can only deal with one dying person at a time, and the last thing I need is for you to get sick."

"But Miss Uhura, I can stay and help you, I--"

"_Now_. And go downstairs and call Dr. McCoy when you're finished." Charlene gives a long-suffering sigh, but leaves the room.

Uhura makes short work of the rest of his clothing and dumps it in a pile in the corner. She thinks of leaving his underwear on for modesty's sake, but in the end, she doesn't want to be the inadvertent cause of this young man's death. He wouldn't be the first white man she's seen in the nude--after all, this was Paris--but that doesn't stop her from looking. She drags the soft white cotton briefs over his hips and down his thighs, careful to avoid the bullet wound.

"Well," she says, a little flustered. "The good Lord certainly has blessed you."

Like everyone else these days, he'd shed whatever extra pounds he'd been carrying before the war began and was now a collection of long, lean lines and sharp edges. There are a number of scars up and down his body, the worst of them an old bullet wound on his stomach. A fringe of pale, blond eyelashes flutters against his cheeks, and his chest rises and falls with each shallow breath.

~

  
Her mystery guest is now nothing more than a bundle of quilts with two eyes peeking out. She's cleaned the wound as best she could, but is afraid to do anything more without the doctor there. Her hands are busy at work on his cold feet, trying to rub some of the warmth back into him, when he begins to stir. He peers at her curiously from sleepy blue eyes.

"Well, aren't you a choice bit of calico. You got a name, sweetheart?"

Uhura smothers the urge to open the door and roll him back down the stairs again. "Seeing how you were the one out taking a nap on my doorstep, that should be my question to you."

He grins lazily up at her. "James T. Kirk, son of George and Winona Kirk, volunteer ambulance driver for American Field Service Section 17 at your service."

"You talk like a regular fly boy, you know that? We had a few Americans who were volunteering in the Royal Air Force here the other day, and more than once I thought I'd either have to lock them out or the girls in. And the name's Uhura."

She can see where a tooth is missing in the back when he laughs, and wonders if he's another one of those who grew up chasing their next meal across the country during the Depression. "Now why would I be up in one of those frozen tin cans when I can enjoy a ripe tomato like yourself right here?"

Uhura presses her thumbs deep into the soft flesh in the arch of his foot.

"Hey, hey!" Kirk yelps. "I thought you were supposed to be the gentle sex."

"I bet they taught you that in Sunday school right after the part where I'm supposed honor and obey you just because of what's between your legs," she replies sharply.

"Nah, I skipped out that day." He wriggles around in the bedclothes. "But I see you've got me in my birthday suit, so that must mean you're familiar with what's between my legs."

The blood rushes to her face, and she moves to work on his other foot. "Well, I couldn't just leave you in those wet things you came in with."

"Oh, I'm not complaining, you can take my word on that one."

She's doing best to hide her smile when the sounds of an argument downstairs bring all her senses to attention.

"Shh."

"What is is it?"

Uhura frowns. "It sounds like there's some kind of trouble going on down there. I had Charlene call for Doctor McCoy but--"

"McCoy? Is that Bones down there?"

"You _know_ him?"

"Of course I know him, he was with us for the evacuation down in Beauvais."

Everything has gone quiet now, and for some reason, that makes Uhura even more nervous.

"Well, you'll get to see him soon enough. Now you just lie there and hush until I get back."

~

  
She finds Dr. McCoy locked in close quarters with two youngish looking Gestapo officers whose hands hover near their weapons. It isn't the first time the Germans have shown up here, and its not likely to be the last. But it is the first time McCoy has been around when it happened. With his shirt tails halfway untucked and his hair sticking up in back, he doesn't look at all like the put together gentleman from a few hours before. Some of the guests draw closer to their companions while others tighten their grip on their glasses, tense and ready for a fight.

Uhura quickly inserts herself between the three of them. Her day has already been long enough, and the last thing she wants is dead bodies on her property. One of the officers is sporting a nasty bruise beneath his eye, and the other is holding his right hand close to his chest.

"Officers, can I help you with anything?" After six years of living in Paris, her French rolls off her tongue easy and near-perfect.

"Good evening," the taller of the two replies. Uhura's eyes widen in surprise at his use of English. "We are looking for someone, and we believe he may have disappeared around here somewhere. He is injured--he can't have gotten far."

Her mind immediately goes to the mouthy young man currently in her bed and her heart nearly stops.

McCoy steps closer to her. "I told them, there's no one here that fits that description."

She looks up, careful to keep the smile on her face as she feels her heart rate increase.

"A moment, please?" She hauls McCoy a few feet away. "I'll take care of this, McCoy. You make sure Spock is somewhere discreet, and then get upstairs and see to the reason I called you hear the first place."

McCoy opens his mouth as if to protest, but Uhura slides past him and goes to meet the two men at the door. The the musky stench of their wet uniforms can be smelled from five feet away.

"May I be of assistance, officers?"

The younger of the two smiles patronizingly at her. "He is fortunate to have such dedicated staff as yourself. Where are you from, my dear?”

“Paris, of course." She tries not to choke on her anger at their casual assumption.

They smile at each other, and the bright light in their eyes gives away the fact that they are already more than a little drunk.

“No, you misunderstand. Where are you _from_?”

“America. The- the South.”

“Where, in the south?” His accent was so slight that if she'd closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that she was talking to another American.

“Georgia.”

“Ah, Georgia. You have quite a number of agricultural exports, there. Are you from the city of Atlanta?”

The whole place is quiet now, all eyes trained on the tiny cluster of people at the back of the room. “Stone Mountain—it's a little place, you've never heard of it.”

The shorter of the two waves her argument away, and takes a step nearer to her as if they were old friends. “If I am correct, it sits at the foot of the largest granite deposit in the world. It is quite a marvel.”

Uhura tries not to recoil from the shock--Stone Mountain is so tiny you could spit on it and flood the whole city. Most Americans don't know about it, much less this young German kid with his smooth, Aryan good looks. “How do you know about Stone Mountain?" she asks, afraid to hear the answer.

“We were trained for the administration.”

“The administration of what?” she blurts out, before she can find out she's too afraid to hear the answer.

“Of the North American territories, of course.”

The expression on her face stays as smooth as glass. "Well, then. Please have a seat, gentlemen, and I'll see what I can do to help you find this man. After all, we can't send you off to work without a little American jazz."

~

It's after 5a.m. when she finally sees them on their way out the door. Uhura plied them with liquor until they were so drunk they could hardly stand, then sent them off merry and gushing praise about her dark exotic beauty, her food, the music. If she's lucky, they won't remember where they were. As soon as they were gone, she kicks everyone else out, then hurries back upstairs.

She finds McCoy standing in the hallway, wiping his hands with a damp towel, sharing some quiet joke with Charlene. Her hair is a frazzled mess because of the wet weather she was caught in earlier, but she looks much calmer than she did an hour ago.

"Miss Uhura!" Charlene calls, catching sight of her first. She runs down the hall and wraps her in a bone-crushing hug. "You're okay."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Uhura replies with a shrug of her shoulder. "It's not like I haven't dealt with this kind of thing before. Get off to bed with you now." Charlene places a gentle kiss on Uhura's cheek then draws away with a smile before disappearing into her room.

"I'm amazed at the way you handled all this." He jostles her with his elbow. "Next time I'll just hide behind you."

She tries to smile, but she just doesn't have the energy.

"You know, when I was eight, there was this boy that lived next door to me named Leroy. Leroy was sweet on this white girl who was the daughter of the druggist, even though everyone tried to warn him away from her. It gave his mother stomach pains, the way she worried about him. And sure enough one morning, I'm walking down the road on my way to school and what do I see hanging from this old oak tree but Leroy himself."

"Uhura, I'm--"

"I'm not telling you this so I can get your sympathy. I'm telling you this because, if you think I'm going to let them scare me, then you, and they, have got another thing coming." She wraps her arms around her waist to keep herself from going slowly to pieces.

"You all right there?" asks McCoy, touching a hand to her shoulder. All traces of the gruff bravado from before are gone.

"That wasn't the first time they've been here. Not even the master race can resist the temptation to see a colored girl live and in the flesh."

McCoy shifts awkwardly, unsure of how to respond. "Doesn't make it any easier," he mumbles.

Uhura shrugs away his concern. "Spock make it home okay?"

"Yeah, he's fine."

"And that kid? They were looking for him, you know."

"Who, Jim?" McCoy shakes his head. "I'm not surprised."

"He tell you what for?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Lucky for him, it was a clean shot, in and out through the quad. Charlene held his hand while I flushed it with iodine—I wish I could do more, but all the supplies we can spare are being used out on the front. He should be fine, though." he pauses for a moment. "That Charlene of yours, she's a good kid."

"Good, good." She lets her eyes fall shut for a few moments before dragging in a ragged breath. It feels like the first one she's taken since those two soldiers first darkened her doorstep.

McCoy takes her small hand in his own, and presses his mouth to the cool skin of her hand. It is a light kiss, delicate and well-mannered and a wholly new side of the grouchy doctor she knows and loves.

"I never expected anything less from you, dollface."

Uhura is a little flustered at the unexpectedly sweet comment, when a muffled voice comes from inside her room.

"Bones, you sneaky dog. Two birds at once? I never thought you had it in you."

Uhura just covers her mouth with her hand, and tries her best not to laugh.

~

  
After a brief nightcap, Uhura has just set the doctor up with a cot downstairs—it's so late that there's not much sense in him going back home now. However, she did forget that her bed is currently occupied by 160 pounds of young man.

He's pulled himself up against the bed board, nose buried deep in her copy of Richard Wright's _Uncle Tom's Children_. When she clears her throat pointedly, he doesn't so much as look up.

"This is really good, you know. Mind if I borrow it?"

Some of the color has come back into his cheeks, and Uhura has to remind herself not to keep staring at his mouth. "I most certainly do. That copy is signed and therefore,"she plucks the book from his hands, "irreplaceable. Are you going to tell me why two German officers showed up on my doorstep looking for you tonight?"

His expression darkens. "What, are you trying to tell me that I should be pals with them?"

She shoves the book back onto its shelf thinking of how shaken Chekov was when she sent him home an hour ago. "Don't twist my words. There are people here that depend on me, and I'm not going to put them in danger."

"That's not what I meant," he says, scrubbing a weary hand over his face.

Ignoring him, she begins pulling out additional linens to try and figure out what is the best way to curl up in her armchair for the night.

"Wait, wait—what are you doing?"

"I'm getting ready to for bed."

"You can't sleep in the chair, not when this bed's the size of Texas." He gestures to the space next to him. "You're the hero—you rescued me, and now you get to bed me."

"I'd stop being so fresh if I were you."

"Oh, come on. It's been a long day—the least you deserve is to sleep in your own bed."

Somehow, what would seem scandalous coming from anyone else seems enticing when it comes from Kirk's mouth. And she does love her bed, and she's just so...tired.

"Okay. But I'm keeping my clothes on, and you're staying beneath those blankets. Got it?" She slides in the bed next to him, and makes herself into as tiny a ball as possible.

"You know, if you're cold..."

"Dry up, Kirk," she retorts, her voice sleepy and without any malice.

The only response she gets is the feeling of the bed shaking with his laughter. The last coherent thought she has before she drifts off to the steady sound of his breathing, is that she never got an answer to her question.

~

  
Uhura wakes from deep dreams of Georgia and vaudeville circuits and the sister she's not seen in years to the sound of someone whispering her name. She flings her arm out get rid of the offending noise.

"I've got to get back to the hospital now, but I--"

The word _hospital_ brings her wide awake. Last night. The Gestapo. Sending Charlene out for McCoy. _James T. Kirk_. It's only McCoy's steady hand that keeps her from tumbling from the mattress and onto the floor.

"What? What time is it?"

"8a.m., or thereabouts. It's time I got lost."

"Wait, wait. The least I can do is walk you to the door." He waits as she ties a shawl around her shoulders, which is a little pointless since she's still in the same dress she had on last night. All the same, it makes her feel somehow comforted.

She follows him down into the café, which is oddly peaceful this time of day. "So doctor, when do you think Jim—Mr. Kirk, that is—will be admitted to the hospital?"

McCoy shakes his head. "We're short of beds as it is, darling. For the foreseeable future, he'll be right here with you."

"Here? With _me_? For how long?"

"Two, three weeks at most. Kid heals fast. Besides, from what I saw you two were getting along just fine."

Uhura feels her face heat up. "Dr. McCoy, you know that's not funny. That wasn't what you thought it was."

"What it looked like was the James Kirk charm at work once again." He rolls down the cuffs of his shirt, tucks the tails back into his pants. "If we could bottle that stuff, this war would be over in an instant. That boy could coax a hen into a foxhole, I swear."

"McCoy, really, I--"

He gives her a wink. "If there's anyone who can keep their head on straight around him, it's you, kid."

He slips out into the rising sun, leaving Uhura standing in her bare feet in the empty club, alone and more than a little shell shocked.

~

  
Uhura wanders back into the little kitchen behind the bar, and finds that Charlene is already there making coffee on the stove. She pours some for Uhura, and then for herself.

"So he's still here."

Uhura peers at her from over the rim of her cup, sets it down slowly. "Of course he's still here, he's wounded."

"I thought that's what the hospital was for."

"And I thought that this was my property, to do with as I wish."

Charlene covers Uhura's hand with her own. "Nyota, please. You have a white boy full of bullet holes hiding upstairs in your bed. What if the Gestapo comes looking for him again? What if they come looking for you? What if--"

A headache begins to build behind her eyes. "Just let me deal with this, all right?"

"Fine," Charlene replies, and knocks back the rest of her coffee. "But tell me the nookie is worth it, at least."

Uhura's mouth drops open a little. "I don't know yet."

"Now I know you don't have any sense," Charlene scoffs. "Why go through the trouble of keeping a stallion if you ain't gonna ride it?" She begins to rise, but Uhura takes her by the wrist and pulls her down again.

"Wait--there are some papers I lifted from our guests last night in the bottom of my top drawer. I want you to get to translating them soon as you can, okay? And bring it to me when you're finished."

Now it's Charlene's turn to smile. In moments like this Uhura is glad she plucked Charlene Masters off the vaudeville circuit when she did. Besides being a natural with machinery, she practically inhales new languages, and is a valuable second pair of ears for collecting any information that might be valuable to the budding resistance movement.

"I'll get right on it, Miss Uhura."

Uhura reaches out and runs a hand through Charlene's hair, which is still a frazzled mess. "But not until we fix your hair. Run upstairs and grab a hot comb and we'll see if we can hack our way through that jungle on the top of your head."

~

____spacer____

Uhura soon learns that the real reason McCoy won't admit Kirk into the hospital is that it is nearly impossible to keep him in a bed. The second night after his arrival, Uhura almost suffers a heart attack when she turns around to find him at the bar, hard at work teaching Chekov dirty words in English.

She comes up behind him and places a hand at the small of his back. He turns, smiles when he sees her.

"Mr. Kirk-"

"Jim," he insists. He's conned McCoy into bringing him new clothing, and the cut of the dove grey vest he's wearing shows off his figure to great effect. A part of her wants to drag him back to her bed right now. "I thought we were friends, now."

"And I thought you were still supposed to be on bed rest."

"Aw, come on, don't be such a wet blanket." He looks up at her from beneath those long lashes, his expression coy as any girl's, and she feels her resolve weaken and crumble.

"If you're staying down here, then stop bothering my staff and get to work. Go on out there and charm a few heiresses into buying another round, got it?"

She is banking on the fact that his classic good looks will make him popular with the ladies and the gents alike, and is happy to see her instincts prove true. Kirk is soon surrounded by a number of people, not a few them young girls doting upon him due to his injury. He sports a cane he got from who knows where, and wields it like a weapon of seduction instead of the medical aid it is.

The only time he causes trouble is when he tries to join Spock on the piano. Spock coolly and calmly removes Kirk's hand from the keyboard, then stares at him wordlessly until Kirk slinks back off the stage again. For the rest of the night, Uhura is too busy to pay him any attention.

She slips upstairs before things wind down for the night, leaving the lockup to Charlene for once. She's sitting at her vanity, steel hairpins in stuck in her mouth while her fingers are busy winding a length of hair around the hard curlers she sleeps in every night.

A pebble clatters against the smaller of her windows overlooking the alley. When she  
leans outside, sure enough, it's Kirk.

"Can't you just knock like a normal person?" she hisses.

"What, you don't think this is romantic?" he calls back. "I'm recapturing the magic of our first night together!"

She goes quickly down the back staircase to let him in.

He takes his time coming up—it's obvious that his night of over-activity has finally caught up with him.

"Didn't I tell you that you're not ready to be up and about like that?" she says around a mouthful of metal.

"Where's the fun in that? Jim Kirk will always be where the action is."  
He drops onto the bed with a pained grunt. There's nothing but silence behind her, then a soft,"_Shit_," uttered underneath his breath.

"What is it?" Uhura asks as she tosses her dressing gown over the back of her chair. "Did it reopen?"

"Nah, I just....need to stay off it for a while." His shirt and pants get tossed onto the floor. Uhura thinks of scolding him for making a mess of her room, but decides against it.

Hair tied up in a scarf, she climbs onto the bed next to him and slides between the cool sheets. Jim shifts so that he can get a better look at her, and it's hard not to turn away from the weight of his steady gaze.

"Growing up, my family drove all over looking for work—Iowa, Colorado, California. But I don't know that I ever saw anyone beautiful as you are." He moves closer to her on the bed. "Can I kiss you? Come on, say yes."

"Will you tell me where you went tonight?" Uhura doesn't know why this is important to her, but it is. There is so little she can rely on these days. She wants to like him, can feel it in her bones, but she won't start off with a foundation built on half-truths.

He frowns. "I didn't--"

"_Don't_ lie to me, please. More than an hour passed between the time Charlene finished locking up and the time you walked through that door."

"If I could tell you, I would."

"In that case--sorry mac, bank's closed." She props herself up on one elbow and studies his face carefully, tracing the outline of his cheekbones with her eyes. "We can't keep this up forever, Jim. Eventually one of us has to give in."

All traces of humor leave his expression. "If I said you should catch the next flight out of here, would you?"

"And go back to doing what, Jim? Cleaning houses in Georgia? This place is my life."

"I don't know—you'd find something." The frustration is clear in his eyes, and Uhura is a little glad that he's beginning to realize what she's up against. He rolls over onto his back again and tucks his hands behind his head, gaze trained on the ceiling. "This war is gonna be like nothing we've ever seen before."

She's not sure she wants to know the meaning behind his cryptic words, so she just turns off the lamp and settles in for the night. Once Jim is asleep, she slides an arm around his waist and tucks herself around him. And for a moment, she can pretend that there are no Allies and no Axis, and that they are the only two people in the world.

  


~

  
Uhura is going over the ledger in the little closet she's converted into an office when Dr. McCoy stops by. It's been a little over two weeks since Kirk arrived, and the doctor has been dropping in whenever he can to check on his progress. Today he has with him a beautiful basket of oranges, a rare treasure smuggled up from the Vichy zone.

"Doctor, these are amazing," Uhura breathes, inhaling their fragrant scent. She can scarcely remember the last time she had an orange. "What's the occasion?"

McCoy offers her a sad smile. "It's a gift....and an apology."

Uhura shakes her head, confused. "I don't know what you mean."

"Jocelyn doesn't like what's going on, here. She wants to get away from the Right Bank, out into the country—or back to the States, even."

"So you're the first," Uhura says to herself, and sets the basket on her desk. She's not blind to what's going on out there. Just about everything you can name is more expensive now, if you can get your hands on it at all. She used to put little chocolate bonbons on the tables every night, but had to give up on that a few months ago when getting one's hands on chocolate of any quantity became a very rare possibility.

From his breast pocket, McCoy pulls out a fat white envelope. "I also want you to have this."

She turns it over, and is surprised to find that the return address bears the name of Spock's father. Uhura looks at McCoy with a question in her eyes.

"It's the deed of ownership to the accounting firm Spock stands to inherit. When things first started to get hairy, we had it transferred into my name, just in case. But now that I might not be here anymore, we thought you might want to hold onto that for him. If it's all right with you, of course."

"Of course it's all right with me," she replies, her head whirling with all this new information. "And here I thought you two were sworn enemies."

The crows feet at the corner of McCoy's eyes crinkle when he smiles. "We do put on a good show, don't we? Maybe we should take it on the road."

The letter is carefully tucked away into the little safe beneath her desk.

"So, you're really leaving?"

"I'm afraid so, doll." He takes a deep breath, and then drags her into a bone-crushing hug. "You take care of yourself, you hear me? When this is all over, I'm gonna come back and find you, I don't care where you are."

Uhura isn't a crier in the normal course of things, but she can feel tears rolling down her cheeks in a steady stream. "Of course, Doctor."

McCoy seems suddenly embarrassed about his emotional outburst, and pulls away from her again. "And uh...about Kirk. You two aren't..." he clears his throat again, and makes a vague gesture in the air.

She crosses her arms over her chest in defiance. "I don't see how that's any of your concern."

His face turns slightly red. "You and Jim, I care about the both of you. But you can't forget that the world is made up of a helluva lot more people than the ones who come through your doors. And they won't all be as...understanding. So just take it easy, okay?"

She doesn't want to lie to him, so she just wraps her arms around his neck and hugs him for what might be the last time.

~

  
Kirk is already waiting for her upstairs when she turns in for the night. He's standing at the window overlooking the river, his expression thoughtful.

"How'd it go tonight?" he asks, and there is something off about the sound of his voice.

"Fine, Jim." She hesitates. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

"I'm leaving the day after tomorrow."

Her heart clenches a little. "So soon?"

"Bones has given me a clean bill of health—I can only hide under your bed for so long before they'd come looking for me."

The right words for this moment elude her. After only two weeks, Jim Kirk is not quite her friend nor her lover, but something else entirely that she doesn't have a name for. "I'll be sorry to see you go," she offers lamely.

"I have something I want to show you." He begins undoing the buttons of his shirt. "You asked me once why I was down here driving an ambulance instead of up there, flying."

"I was just teasing—I don't care what you do."

"Well I was, once. Battle of Poland, 1939. There was about sixteen of us from America, volunteers for the Kosciuszko Squadron. I was a gunner on a PZL.37 bomber. It was so damn cold up there, around thirty below, that I didn't even know I'd been hit at first. Then all I could think of was how I needed to get the blood out of the window while it was still frozen, because otherwise they'd make me clean it all up once when we landed and everything melted again." He bites his lip, then pulls off his undershirt as well.

"Jim, you don't have to talk about this if you don't want to."

"Give me your hand." She does, and he presses it to the small dent on his stomach she noticed the first day they met. It's an ugly little divot where the flesh never quite healed right, the perfect size for the tip of her pinky finger to slip inside. She imagines that his skin is a bit warmer there, like his body never forgot being violated. The thought of him being so close to death makes her hand shake a bit.

He stares blankly into the distance. "I was so scared then. Out in California, I saw people try and kill each other over jobs, food. But I don't know, that was something different up there. The other guys in my plane, I hardly knew them. We went through pilots faster than we went through bullets. So when I was discharged, I left Poland, signed up for the Field Service. And then Bones was there, and it was just the two of us and volunteer ambulance #127253." The corner of his mouth quirks upwards. "I've never met a finer woman than the one beneath the hood of that vehicle."

  


____spacer____

  
"I don't know if I should be insulted or not," she remarks, grateful for the humor of the moment.

"That vehicle's saved a lot of lives. I thought volunteering, freeing up other people to be on the front lines--that it would be enough."

"But it wasn't," says Uhura. She thinks of the hours she's spent chatting up the well-connected officials that frequent her establishment in the hope that they might drop some useful information, and something dawns on her. "So you started working for the resistance."

Surprise is written in bold letters across his face. "How'd you figure it out?"

"I put two and two together and came up with four. That night you came, you were almost caught, weren't you? And after that, the other disappearances—you were dropping information then, too." She looks at her chest of drawers, which are stuffed with coded letters from her contacts behind a secret panel. "You aren't the only one in this business, you know."

The sound of his laughter is short, brittle. "You know, that doesn't even surprise me. Bones was the one who told me I should come here if I ever got in a fix in the first place."

"_McCoy_ sent you here?"

"He always has a way of being in the thick of things, doesn't he?"

She snorts, thinking of the paperwork for Sarek's business locked up downstairs. "I'll say."

"I don't want to leave you," Jim says suddenly, his voice sounding terribly young. "If I could, I'd stay here forever."

"I wish you had told me all this before," Uhura says, her voice made soft by the knot in her throat.

He pulls on one of the curls framing her face and winds it around his finger. The softness in his eyes makes it clear that he completely adores her. "Standing in front of bullets is the easy part. Telling a beautiful dame that you're head over heels for her, now that's hard."

She drags him closer, hooking her fingers into the waistband of his trousers so that her knuckles graze the warm skin beneath. Her heart beats a little faster, and there's a heaviness in her stomach that wasn't there before.

"That question you asked before—ask me again."

He doesn't miss a beat, and locks his arms around her waist. "Can I kiss you?" he whispers in her ear.

This time, her answer is yes.  


  
**FIN**

* * *

  
Historical notes: Most of the events in this story were drawn from actual lives--Dr. McCoy's character was loosely based on the Dr. Sumner Jackson, chief surgeon of the American Hospital in Paris during the war. Uhura's character is drawn from the lives of Josephine Baker, Ada 'Bricktop' Smith, and my awesome great aunt. :D

I did my best to represent events in a historically accurate fashion, but there may have been unintentional errors. However, there are two points in the story where I deliberately fudged history. 1)In occupied Paris, Jews were not mandated to wear the gold star patches and ride in the back of the Metro until 1942; and 2) the Kosciusko Squadron, although a real group of pilots, only had American volunteers in WWI. By WWII, the Polish Air Force was entirely made of Polish folk.

**Disclaimer: **Star Trek and the characters featured in this story are the property of Paramount, JJ Abrams, CBS, Gen Roddenberry et al. I make no money from this.   



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